Poor people have smaller brains

Children with richer parents have bigger brains than their poorer counterparts, new research suggests.
Differences in regions of the brain that deal with language, reading, decision-making and memory were most marked, the study found.
But the scientists from California also found that community help and teaching can remedy the disparities.
The team concludes that factors such as better school lunches and motivated teachers can have a significant impact.
In what is claimed to be the biggest study of its kind, scientists from the University of Southern California tested 1,099 typically developing people - male and female - aged between three and 20.
They measured brain surface area by scans and conducted cognitive tests, and then compared the results with the income levels of the parents.
They corrected for other potential influences on brain structure, such as inherited characteristics.
Their research is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Marked variations
The researchers found that in addition to differences between the brains of the richest and the poorest, there were also marked variations at the lower end of the scale.
There was a bigger difference, for example, between the results in children from families earning $30,000 and $50,000 per year than there was between those earning $90,000 and $110,000.
Report co-author Elizabeth Sowell said: "The most important point we want to convey is not, 'If you are poor, your brain will be smaller, and there is nothing that can be done about it' - that is absolutely not the message.
"It seems reasonable to speculate that resources afforded by the more affluent, such as nutrition, childcare, schools, help 'wire' the brain through development," she said.
"It is not too late to think about how to impact resources that enrich the developmental environment that in turn help the brain wire itself together."

As true as that may be you can not, nor will you ever be able to associate that with brain size. Considering how little of our brains we actually use for thinking, memory, probem solving, it just makes no sense at all......

Kiz, maybe you did well cause of the tater tots in your school lunches!

I work at a Title 1 school (lower test scores and low income), and I have worked at a school with higher test scores. I don't know that I know that this is true, but I do know that parents have a great deal to do with how the children perform at school. I know from my observations that at the Title 1 school the majority of the parents want the school to somehow do most of the work in teaching their children. At the non Title 1 school, parents were more involved in their education. I still don't understand why at the Title 1 school we don't get any parent volunteers. At Title 1 schools we feed the children for free, they don't have to buy a single thing for school, and we provide after school program for free. And because we don't expect them to have to contribute anything they don't. I know there are places that have turned the low test scores around and I think the first thing that is done is getting the parents to have to volunteer and contribute something to their child's education.

As true as that may be you can not, nor will you ever be able to associate that with brain size. Considering how little of our brains we actually use for thinking, memory, probem solving, it just makes no sense at all......

Kiz, maybe you did well cause of the tater tots in your school lunches!

Well, they didn't claim that there's an effect there. They just said they've found a correlation. More research will need to be done on the actual implications of this.

What one person does is irrelevant. Empirical evidence beats antidote evidence any time. Also, the researcher has said that not everybody from a poorer background has a smaller brain than someone from a richer background, and that it's only just a 6% difference between the two extreme ends.

It's entirely unsurprising, however. Poor people will have worse food for themselves when carrying the fetus, and just like how mother who smokes during pregnancy affects the fetus greatly, the food do too.

I work at a Title 1 school (lower test scores and low income), and I have worked at a school with higher test scores. I don't know that I know that this is true, but I do know that parents have a great deal to do with how the children perform at school. I know from my observations that at the Title 1 school the majority of the parents want the school to somehow do most of the work in teaching their children. At the non Title 1 school, parents were more involved in their education. I still don't understand why at the Title 1 school we don't get any parent volunteers. At Title 1 schools we feed the children for free, they don't have to buy a single thing for school, and we provide after school program for free. And because we don't expect them to have to contribute anything they don't. I know there are places that have turned the low test scores around and I think the first thing that is done is getting the parents to have to volunteer and contribute something to their child's education.

It's not just about involvement from parents in terms of education. Children from a wealthier background will always have more exposure to everything compared to someone from a poorer background. And then there's the extra resources they can offer their children with along their schooling life, from pre-school all through university.

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